


do you even lift, bro?

by lady_mab



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Compliant, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 07:24:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16132466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_mab/pseuds/lady_mab
Summary: 5 times grand walks in on echo exercising and gets flustered, + 1 time echo walks in on grand, and still manages to make him very flustered





	do you even lift, bro?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Esiako](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esiako/gifts), [caeliste (fictitiousregrets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictitiousregrets/gifts).



> I can't believe I wrote a 5+1 fic do kids still do those these days? PS no one stopped me from naming it that so I'm not sorry

**1.**

As Grand moved through the halls of the World Without End, he came to a very important conclusion: While it was weird that no one else wanted to sleep in actual beds and decided, instead, to make their rooms in any sort of strange corner they could, he was  _ very _ thankful that he only had to share the room with Signet.

She might give him the odd look now and then, as if trying to read a part of him that he buried deep, but at least it wasn't Gig (and Duck), or the other two he barely knew. At least it wasn't all of them crammed into an uncomfortably small room. 

Grand made it to the door of the space that Echo claimed as their own and took a very long time standing outside, debating if they should knock (it was their personal space) or just walk right in (it was a public space). 

In the end, he decided that it was the downside that Echo accepted as picking a public space on the ship as their personal quarters, and pushed open the door without knocking. "Hey, Echo? I think Even was looking for you—" 

He stopped no more than five steps into the room, enough to bring him around the first row of dormant machines. 

Across the way, bathed in the half-filtered golden light of the mirage floating in through several portholes, Echo paused mid-chin lift and did something that was a cross between a frown and bewilderment. "Grand, you ever hear of _knocking_?" Carefully, they lowered themselves back onto the floor, hands still gripping the crossbar—which was nothing more than piping welded in criss-crossing patterns across the back half of the room, probably to help with the golden netting. 

"I…" It took him a bit longer than he would have liked to recover. "Even is looking for you." 

Echo's expression shifted from half/half into more of a frown, and they looked away. "Okay, so he sent you?" 

Grand found himself speechless as, effortlessly, Echo pulled themselves back up towards the bar. The muscles of their stomach tensed, and their arms flexed with the motion. He had seen them working out during their time traveling Quire, and this was  _ definitely _ more. 

Just.  _ More. _

Seeing something on Grand's face and obviously taking amusement in it, Echo continued to do the pull-ups with no concern for the conversation Grand was attempting (and failing) to have. 

"Even is waiting for you in the cockpit," Grand finally blurted, wrenching his eyes away. 

"Sorry," Echo called at his back, though they didn't much sound it. "Are my pull-ups too intimidating for you?" 

And just like he entered the room, Grand left it with no warning and very little fanfare.

* * *

**2.**

If there was one thing Grand was good at, which he wouldn’t admit to, was ignoring personal boundaries. If there was another thing, was not learning his lesson the first time. 

This time it was a request from Gig and Tender, who had some kind of weird bet going and  _ absolutely _ needed him to go fetch Echo to settle it for them. So, grumbling, he went. 

Once again, he pushed open the door to Echo's room without announcing himself and came face to face with a punching bag. 

"What—" Grand started, then let out a  _ whof _ as the bag was shoved into his chest. 

"Oh, good, you're here," Echo said, glancing around the edge of the bag long enough for Grand to notice the trace of their smirk. "Hold this for me." 

"What—" he tried again, but this time, the wind was practically knocked out of him as Echo delivered a sharp jab of their elbow to the bag. "What the fuck—" 

"I need something more solid to hold this for me." 

"Get Even." Another blow from their elbow 

"He's flying the ship." 

"Listen—" Grand tried, starting to lower the bag just as Echo swung their foot around at his chest. Grand yelped and held the bag back in front of him, stumbling beneath the force of the blow. "You're doing this on purpose!" 

Echo took a sure-footed boxing stance and looked at him with mock surprise all over their face. "What? Take out my frustration with you on a punching bag as you hold it?  _ Never. _ " Their hands were clenched into loose fists, wrapped in tape, and their short hair was pinned back out of their face. 

Everything about them screamed 'scrappy, but would kick your ass in a heartbeat'. Grand didn't want to put that theory to the test. 

He sighed and set the bag down on the floor. "If this is about last month when I walked in on you doing chin-ups or whatever—" 

They laughed, once—loud and sudden enough to catch them both off guard. "No, it's not about that. I'm in a relatively public area, I get it." 

Grand fought down the smug little blip of satisfaction at being able to write off his intrusions. "Then what?" 

Echo's face held no trace of amusement, and their smirk from earlier was gone. Instead, they searched his expression for an answer to a question he didn't ask, instead of giving him an answer to the one he did ask. "I take it you didn't come down here to hold my punching bag for me." 

"No," he said with something like a sigh of relief. "Tender and Gig sent me to get you." 

Some of the tension eased from Echo's face, but there was something about their stance that made Grand think that he was still about to get punched. 

"Alright," they said after the silence started to get really awkward and Grand was just starting to think about ways to break it. "Put the bag over there for me, would you?" They gesture absently across the room before starting to unwind the tape from their hands. 

Grumbling, Grand hefted the bag onto his shoulder with ease. "I just came down here to get you, not clean up after you." 

He dropped the bag down against one of the machines, then turned with a sarcastic quip on his tongue—but Echo was already gone.

* * *

**3.**

Grand followed the sounds of the clashing swords through the compound, weaving past teenagers he barely recognized from the Arc, and the very unfamiliar Qui Err. Each one gave him a strange look, but he kept his eyes forward and his ears to the tuned of metal on metal. 

He stepped into small quad that had been converted into a haphazard training yard. A few nervous recruits stood to one side, clutching the hilts of assorted swords. Echo swung relentlessly at one of the Arc kids, and it was all the kid could do to defend the attacks as Echo shouted footwork advice and form corrections. 

Grand remained off to the side, content to watch Echo as they all but beat up the kid with their words and carefully aimed swings. He marveled at the lines of their form, noting how much more honed it had become since that time back in Crown. Every move precise, not a wasted action. 

It made Grand want to grab his sketchbook, but it was back on the Catapult, safe with the rest of his items. Waiting for the right moment. 

Eventually, Echo became angled in such a way that they noticed Grand lurking in the background, and immediately some of the frustration left their gaze. Their blows lost some of the force behind them, and their footwork turned more into a dance than military precision. 

They wrapped up their lesson after they disarmed their opponent, sending the sword clattering in Grand's direction. He stooped to pick it up as Echo said, "Alright, all of you. Partner up and do your footwork drills." 

Grand carried the sword awkwardly in their hand, uncertain how to hold it. Definitely incorrectly, if Echo's amused expression was any indication. "How's Ballad?" he asked when he was close enough. 

Echo hid their expression by taking the sword and handing it back to their student. "He's doing okay." 

"How are you?" 

There was a beat, and Grand wondered if they were formulating a lie. Then, with a sigh, they said, "Restless," and that was a good enough truth. "You?" 

"My shuttle leaves in about an hour. I wanted to…" He trailed, off, uncertain of how exactly he wanted to finish that sentence. 

Echo didn't reply as they headed towards the sidelines, and Grand followed, watching the muscles across their shoulders and back as they stretched their arms in gentle movements after the exercise. They ruffled their hair out of its ponytail, then turned to Grand before he could let his thoughts wander. "And you're sure about this?" 

He didn't want to be, but he was. "Yeah." 

They nodded, slowly, then held out their hand. "Be safe." 

Grand looked at the hand before taking it in his own. 

Echo didn't give him much time to react before pulling him in for a fierce hug. Their free arm reached around his shoulder, and they tucked their face against his chest. "I mean it, Grand." 

"I know," he said, arm hooking around their waist and pressing his forehead against the side of their head. "Try not to beat up all these recruits too badly." 

"Just wait until Ballad's back on his feet. We'll whip them into shape, and then come save your ass again." 

He managed a laugh. "I'll see you soon, Echo." 

Their grip tightened for a heartbeat, then two, then they let him go. They turned away before he could see their face. They grabbed a towel and wiped their face, then the back of their neck. When they turned back, their posture was straight once again and their expression schooled. "Alright, we got work to do!" They pitched their voice to include their students. 

They gave Grand one last slap on his shoulder as they brushed past him, and he watched them go.

* * *

**4.**

Grand had been looking for a quiet space to sit and work when he stumbled upon Echo sprawled out on the floor of an empty room—not quite like a starfish, as their knees were propped up, but their arms flopped out to either side of them, and their gaze focused up on the ceiling. The large window against one wall let in the late afternoon sun, patterned by the leaves of the tree just outside. 

"Is this the part where you tell me to leave you here to die in peace?" Grand asked, stepping in anyway because the room was otherwise quiet and in no ways was it Echo's specifically. He kicked the door shut behind him and effectively cut off the shouting from down the hall. 

They made a sound that might have been a sigh. "No. 'S fine. I was in the middle of stretching, but lost the motivation." 

"You? Lose motivation?" He dropped down onto the floor in front of Echo, and they extended a foot to nudge him in the side. "You're allowed to sit still." 

"I don't really believe that most of the time." With a small grunt, Echo picked themselves off the floor, bending in half at the waist and shoving at Grand's shoulder. "Make yourself useful. Hold my feet down." 

"What? Why?" 

"It's easier to do sit-ups." 

Grand scoffed but complied by shifting around and sitting on Echo's feet instead. He ignored their squawk of protest and the annoyed smack on the back of his head. Instead, he pulled out his tablet and the work he had been doing before the amount of noise at the other end of the house forced him to move. "There." 

Echo grumbled something about that not being what they had asked for, but didn't bother correcting him. Grand heard them flop back onto the floor and, a moment later, the steady rhythm of their movements faded into the background. 

He lost track of the time, marking it only when Echo would pause or wriggle their feet experimentally beneath him. He sat resolutely in place, since he hadn't been asked to move, and continued to work. 

Eventually, during one of Echo's pauses, they broke the silence. "Hey." 

"Hm?" 

"Grand." 

"Hmm?" 

Their feet did an ineffectual kick, and he huffed out a laugh. They could probably uproot him easily if they wanted to. "Turn around." 

He did, hooking his elbow over their knees like he would the back of a chair, and arching an eyebrow curiously. "What?"

Echo sat up, completing the motion with ease despite however long they had been doing sit-up after sit-up. Their arms came up from where they had been folded over their chest and wrapped easily around the back of his head and shoulders. 

Grand obeyed the pull as they closed the distance to kiss him. It wasn't their first kiss—far from it—but each time Echo managed to make him feel light-headed and breathless. At the sure and eager slide of their lips on his, their teeth against his lower lip, the teasing of their tongue. 

Echo started to pull away, and Grand chased after as long as he could until their knees dug into his sternum. He might have made some sort of noise, because they dropped back onto the floor with a smug smirk as they lifted a hand to their mouth—as if to wipe something to the corner of their lips. 

It was as much a challenge as it was an invitation, and Grand didn't know exactly how to respond to either. 

Echo didn't seem entirely put off by his hesitation, and laughed at whatever expression they saw on his face. "I love that you still get so flustered," they teased, and this time when they moved their foot beneath him, he rocked wildly to the side and barely managed to come back to his senses before toppling onto the wooden floor. 

A challenge, then. 

Grand clicked his tongue in disapproval and pushed himself to his feet. "Maybe if you didn't feel the need to tease me so much." 

Echo laughed again and didn't try to stop him as he left the room. 

Let them come to him, then. Later. 

For now, Grand had to try and fight down the red in his cheeks.

* * *

**5.**

The first shrieks of laughter came peeling through the house just as Even was about to join Grand at the dining table. 

Their gaze met across the table, and a knowing laugh escaped Even. "My work is never done." 

"I'll go check on them," Grand offered. He was getting tired staring at the blueprints, in which nothing ever really seemed to change. 

"Brave man." 

"Your three bugs? How bad can it be?"

Even laughed again, waving a hand to dismiss him. "I won't spoil the surprise then." 

Grand shut down the tablet and pushed himself upright. Pausing long enough to stretch his arms over his head, he followed the sound of the laughter outside into the yard. As he got closer, he could make out Echo's voice among the kids', their laughter mixing together. 

Well, at least the kids weren't being left to their own devices. 

He slid open the back door and stepped into the warm evening. 

Cascabel, resting in one of the chairs in the shadow of the house, looked up at his approach. "Oh, you're just in time." 

"To do what?" 

"To watch Echo's great defeat." 

Curious, Grand turned his attention to the lawn, there Echo—forearms braced against the ground and legs extended back—struggled beneath the weight of two of the three children currently perched upon their back. 

"You're too much for me!" Echo was saying. 

"Again, again!" the children chanted, and Echo heaved a very loud, very staged sigh. 

"Alright…" they said. "Here we go." With deliberate slowness, they shifted their stance, rising up onto their palms as the kids struggled to stay on. In the same fluid motion, Echo lowered themselves until their chest was nearly against the lawn, then pushed back up. "One!" 

And then, a second time. "Two!" 

Echo counted each push-up as they went, managing to make it to seven before their arms started to even show the strain of the two kids on their back. 

"The current record is fifteen with one kid," Cascabel supplied, "and that's only because she won't sit still long enough." 

Sure enough, the smallest of the three was clinging to one of her older siblings as Echo did push-up number eight. 

"So they're trying to get to fifteen again before… what?" Grand asked, crossing his arms over his chest and relaxing back against the wall of the house. 

Even from this distance, he could see the delight written all over Echo's face, even as they pretended like this was some monumental task. Their elbows were stained green, showing the signs of an afternoon of playing with the kids in the grass. Their hair was in a sloppy bun, barely staying in place. 

Wordlessly, he took this image and the fluttering of his heart and stored for later. 

"We're about to find out," Cascabel said, sounding very unconcerned at the destruction his children were probably capable of. 

Echo was halfway through push-up sixteen when they decided to give up, flopping down into the grass and sending the two on their back tumbling off on either side. They rolled over onto their back and flung an arm out in the direction of the patio. "Someone! Anyone! Save me—" The plea was cut off as the youngest threw herself across their stomach and they wheezed in laughter. 

Even appeared at the back door, and took one look at the scene on the lawn before shaking his head. "You should go rescue them. Dinner is almost ready." 

"Those are your kids!" Grand protested. 

"You say that like they listen to us." 

Scoffing, Grand pushed away from the wall and stepped out onto the lawn. "Alright, Bugs, time to go," he said, attempted to corral them in the direction of the house. 

The only thing they did was one of them latching onto one leg, and another pulling at his arm, while the youngest remained sprawled across Echo's stomach. "Lift us lift us!" 

"I can't!" 

"You did last time you visited!" 

"You were smaller then!" To prove his point, Grand attempted raise the arm with a child dangling from it, and barely got his fist up to the level of his shoulder. "You're way too much for me." 

Grand waded a few steps closer before, inevitably, he tripped over one of them—he wasn't even too sure where the kids were at this point, they seemed to move rapidly and constantly. He thought  _ Arbit _ was erratic. 

He barely had the time to catch himself before likely squashing either Echo or one of the kids. 

Beneath the arc of his arms, Echo laughed. "My knight in flannel," they teased, reaching up to drape one arm around Grand's neck. 

"Fuck off," he said, rolling his eyes.  

"Language! There are children present!" The smile didn't leave Echo's face, and they ran their fingers through his hair as they pulled him in a bit closer. 

The children responded with a chorus of 'ewwwww's and 'they're gonna kiss!!!!!!' before taking off back towards the house and their dads at top speed.

Echo hesitated a beat before bursting into laughter again. "If that was all it took, I would have called you over here earlier." 

"I don't appreciate being used like that," he said, though when they craned their head up to kiss him, he found that he didn't quite mind if he had been used like that. 

"Now," Echo said with a tired sigh. "My arms are jelly. Carry me back into the house." 

"That's not how this works," Grand mumbled against their lips, ignoring the oldest child's shout to stop smooching because dinner was ready. 

When he stood up, he offered his hand down to Echo—who hemmed and hawed from their place in the grass before accepting the help. 

He kept their hand in his as he started to walk towards the house, but that lasted only a few steps before Echo fell into step behind him and promptly threw their arms around him and hopped up with an ease only they possessed. 

Grand yelped and stumbled back a step before catching Echo beneath the thighs and resigning himself to giving them a piggyback into the house—knowing full well that the kids would each demand several before the night was over.

* * *

**+1.**

Manual labor was calming to Grand. It reminded him of a simpler time, when he was just a face among many, loading and unloading trucks, and the fewer questions he asked, the more he got paid. It was hard work, but he could lose himself to it. 

He was setting up his new workshop, moving in boxes and unloading then as he felt like it. No rhyme or reason, and that sort of freedom was a relief too. Outside, Arbit whirled as it pleased, and a few of the more curious stood near it to observe. 

But no one bothered Grand as he moved about the floor of his workshop—empty but for boxes. 

The muscles in his arms protested as he shuffled around a pile, two boxes tucked safely in his grip. He didn't much keep up with exercising while a part of the Notion, and then while on the Catapult. So he was a bit out of shape, but it was an easy burn to ignore at the moment, knowing that it would return with a vengeance tomorrow. But that was tomorrow!Grand's problem.  

Today, he worked. Thoughts blissfully silent. Heart considerably lighter than the boxes. 

He didn't even notice anyone approaching or picking their way through the maze of boxes until a low, wolfish whistle broke through the silence of his workshop. 

Grand whirled around immediately and found Echo leaning casually against a piece of equipment—arms crossed over their chest and teasing smirk settled perfectly in place. "How long have you been there?" he demanded, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks as Echo's gaze tracked over him. Not entirely unwelcome, and he had missed them something fierce since they last saw each other. But still a little awkward. 

"Long enough." Echo finished their study and turned their appreciative gaze to finally meet his. "I think I'm supposed to say something about the gun show here, huh? I almost couldn't find you in all this mess." 

He frowned and set down the boxes he carried. "Get out before you knock something over." 

"Make me." 

Grand dusted his hands off on his shirt and made a show of stomping across the room to where Echo stood. 

Their expression shifted from teasing to amused, but as soon as his hands fit around their waist, their eyes went wide with shock. A yelp escaped them as Grand hefted them off their feet, and it dissolved into a fit of laughter as they were slung over his shoulder. 

Luckily, Echo didn't put up a struggle, or else Grand might have dropped them. His arms were far too tired after that stunt. But he kept them firmly in place as he maneuvered back out of the workshop into the cool evening air of the forest and deposited them back onto their feet. 

Echo's grip shifted from around his shoulders, where they had clung to keep themselves in place, to pat Grand's biceps. "You should show those off more often, buddy," Echo teased, but Grand rolled his eyes and cut them off with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on twitter @littleladymab where i like to cry over fictional characters


End file.
